Business communications transmits and manages messages that inform, persuade and collaborate by speaking language of company. HR Communications creates a “one company” culture, integrates acquisitions and facilitates information sharing company wide. Both work at highest levels of organization, aligned with senior management and board.

The most successful HR professionals are consummate communicators. Typically their organizations over communicate with all constituents. Their leadership styles transmit traditions and values of their company. You often find a strategic HR function when spoken and written words parallel leadership actions.

Human Resource Communications is a subset of our corporate culture. Corporate cultures determine communication styles. Cultures as diverse as a business headquarters viewed as a traditional downward style with an abundance of males in dark suits and white starched shirts to other companies which express their identity by polo’s with logo’s and scores of identical sites around country.

Which of three following communication styles dominate your culture?

A.Downward – helping employees perform their jobs B.Upward – senior management and board level C.Horizontal – selling your value proposition and merging cultures

HR COMMUNICATIONS ARE SPECIALIZED Human Resource professionals uniquely position themselves at both start point and finishing point of communication chain. New hire orientation and policy and procedure manuals exemplify downward communication intended to help employees perform their jobs. Employee opinion polls, employee focus groups and exit interviews deliver information upward to solve problems and make executive decisions. Employee newsletters help work teams requiring a coordinated action between units or locations.

How well is HR information exchanged in your company?

One of reasons for such lack of information is "power." It is ability to hold something back from someone and use that hidden knowledge to perform an action or create an imbalance to accomplish a task. If someone knows something and doesn't tell you whole story, two of more common reasons are: Need to Know and Power Plays.

---Need to Know---

With each individual corporate entity comes a corporate vision and a mission. The visions of Corporate America are to make money, survive, and advance technology, healthcare, etc. This vision and mission then trickles down ranks of individual corporations and is pieced out and delegated to each subordinate level. Each individual person contributes by becoming involved in one or more of these visions. In most cases, one person won't know "big picture"; however, they do know that their piece of pie will help to move company toward it ultimate vision.

The job of a manager is to take a piece of this overall corporate vision and mission and develop a vision for his group and a mission for his subordinates. This manager breaks his part of mission into feasible projects that, upon completion, bring department, group, and company closer to its vision. The only person that usually knows whole picture is your manager. Above him, only his manager knows whole picture for his subordinate managers. This, until it ripples back up to macro-vision of Corporate America.

All of this, just to explain a simple idea? But, it is essential to know why you're rarely given a larger picture of piece that you happen to be working on. Three of more important reasons are security, control, and focus.

* Security: If you know whole picture, then you could potentially take off and do same thing somewhere else. By only knowing a small piece of whole puzzle, company is less concerned that you would jeopardize their market advantage.

* Control: If you know whole picture, then why would you need a manager? Somewhere in there, a manager must exist to ensure that everything that his subordinates are doing is directed toward a particular objective. Things have to get done and pieces have to fit together. In middle, your manager knows everything that is important to your group and department and is able to control individuals in group by being central point of contact for information.